In a city of a certain size, like Denver, the restaurant culture extends far beyond the restaurants themselves. Yes, the center of gravity for any town’s dining scene lies in the kitchens and dining rooms of our restaurants. But the fuel that drives our restaurants, their reason for being, lies in the minds – and wallets – of their customers.

In other words, the most important element of any restaurant is not the chef, or the room, or the location. It’s the customers. Without customers, all is moot.

My primary relationship, as a critic, is with customers.

A salaried dining critic with an expense account, like me, holds a certain measure of influence over a city’s restaurant culture. Whether that measure is greater or smaller than it used to be in the pre-internet days is a question of perspective, one that requires constant evaluation and re-evaluation. It fluctuates with the weather. One week a certain number of people like what I’ve written, another week they don’t. A certain number don’t care at all. This is part of the living relationship between a critic and his readers.

The most gratifying part of whatever influence comes with my job is not to have the final say on any topic, it’s to have a voice in the continuing and multi-layered conversation. Because a restaurant is never a fait accompli (they can always improve), and because a critic’s relationship with his readers is also fluid (it, too, can always improve), the last word is never the last word.

Part of this city-wide conversation about restaurants, a vital part, is criticizing the critic.

No one criticizes my work more emphatically, or eloquently, than our city’s cooks. And with a certain amount of justification. I am not part of the community of Denver chefs and restaurateurs. As much as I admire their work and revere their contributions to the city, the requirements of my job – in particular the non-starter requirement of anonymity – forbid me from mingling with them. There are a few, a very few, exceptions. But in general, if I have a relationship with a chef, however small, it makes it much more difficult for me to write dispassionately about their work. Which is, of course, my job.

What I’m most criticized for, among the community of chefs and restaurateurs, is that I’m not an ex-chef. I don’t know the secret chef’s handshake. Never have.

Some feel this undercuts my legitimacy. Many believe that cooking experience is a requirement for legitimacy in restaurant criticism, that to understand the vagaries of regional versions of blanquette de veau or to pinpoint the hidden spices atop the hamachi crudo is what makes a great critic.

I get it. Time spent in a kitchen surely makes a difference in a writer’s understanding of kitchen culture and restaurant culture. To know what happens behind the scenes, to feel it, is a powerful tool to have.

But yet, I don’t write reviews for the community of chefs and restaurateurs. Certainly I hope that they read my work. If they take an idea from it that helps them in their quest to improve, I’m delighted. Every restaurant has the ability to improve, and whenever my feedback has a positive effect on that process, that’s good for all of us.

I write reviews for my fellow customers, the hundreds of thousands of people who read the Denver Post every day, almost none of whom know the secret chef’s handshake, either. My goal is to help them decide when, where, and how to spend their dining time and dollars. I believe that there is a restaurant for every customer, and a customer for every restaurant, and my goal is to make the match.

Could I spend time and space to assess whether or not the veal demi-glace was perfectly executed? Yes, I could. And while I know that many chefs and restaurateurs wish I would, I say this: A perfect veal demi-glace does not get customers into restaurants. A perfect demi-glace does not fill seats, or push the P/L statement into the black. Hospitality does that. Personality does that. Consistency does that. Real and apparent concern for and care of customers – through food, service, atmosphere, and inherent humanity – does that.

Care and concern for the people we serve is, after all, what I share most with the restaurateurs and chefs that I write about. Our shared obligation, the one that determines whether we’ll take home a paycheck or not, is to our audience.